


Rest Your Weary Head

by ASteadyApotheosis



Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur is Our Lord and Savior, Biology Professor Lucas, Bipolar Disorder, Doctor Isak, Eliott is Not Afraid, Eliott is a Filmmaker, Evak and Eliott as Best Friends, Even and Isak Are Eliott's Emotional Support Norwegians, Even is a Filmmaker, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Interviews, Long Years Apart, Lucas Regrets Nothing and I Regret Nothing Too, M/M, Pas Peur, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Separation, Supremely Dramatic Eliott
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:55:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASteadyApotheosis/pseuds/ASteadyApotheosis
Summary: Lucas and Eliott have spent most of the last decade apart—Lucas a biology professor in Paris, and Eliott a filmmaker in New York. Neither of them harbor any real hope that they'll get back together, each for their own reasons. But when Lucas is interviewed for an American video series, and three months later, Eliott is too, all bets are suddenly off.The theme of the series is simple: what's the one thing they want everyone to know?On Lucas's end, he could've spouted biology facts. And as for Eliott? He could've talked about art. But no. They decided to be clichéd Frenchmen, and talk about love instead.And if it's love that's on the docket, well. Where do all roads lead but to each other?(Ft. Eliott's emotional support Norwegians in the second chapter: Even and Isak!)
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant, Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen
Comments: 106
Kudos: 149





	1. Regret Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> The chapters are already written, so expect regular updates, les gars. The title's drawn from Time to Rest Your Weary Head, a track by the inimitable, indescribable, and all-around wonderful Jacob Collier.

**Chapter One**

Lucas ducks into the café on a Saturday, at half-past nine.

If he’d been an L student in _lycée_ , he would say that today, the café’s silence is fit to deafen. Instead, like anyone deserving of their S classification, he merely notes everything that’s new. The new variables. Today, no barista greets him with a cheery _bonjour_. Today, no students call out to him, either with a polite _Monsieur Lallemant_ , or the vastly more stiff _Professeur_.

No, today, all he notes is the muted whir of a high-end laptop, the shuffling of people moving across the space, and that thwap-zip sound, so familiar to anyone who’s ever heard wires being pulled this way and that.

Before he can approach anyone to ask what he should do, he’s the one approached.

“ _Bonjour, Professeur_ Lallemant.”

He cherishes it, the girl’s effort. She’s an American in Paris, speaking French to make him comfortable.

Courtesy really does make the world go round.

He smiles, holds out his hand to shake. “You can just call me Lucas. Claire, right?”

Claire shakes his offered hand. Her smile is wider than his, and the tilt of it reminds him of Alexia. But her handshake is firm, like Arthur’s. “Maybe by the end of the interview,” she says. “Certainly not now.” Then, with a glint of mischief, she emphasizes his title. “ _Professeur_.”

Ah, well. Some battles take longer to win.

She leads him to the center of the café, where they’ve created a sort of talk show setup. Two chairs have been moved to face each other, and there are three cameras around the space, with three people standing behind them. Ostensibly, it’s to capture every moment. Lucas doesn’t know what about him would deserve three cameras, but then, he’s not the film expert here, is he?

He’s nothing but a quiet science professor, teaching his students about exciting advances in _hey, biology_!

He waits for Claire to sit. When she does, he takes the chair opposite.

“Okay, so, you’re aware of how this will go down, yes?”

He nods. “The one lesson I want everyone to know.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Since this is a deeply subjective project, you can go in any order you want. Lesson first, then backstory, or vice-versa. It’s all fine. Thanks to the miracle of US arts funding, we can do all sorts of experimental stuff on Uncle Sam's dime.”

He smiles. Grants are a familiar thing.

Claire motions to the cameras then, like an impresario. There’s no mistaking the fact that things are about to happen, because the relative stillness of the place turns into motion. Practiced motion, but lots of motion nonetheless. With her gesture, the cameras swivel, and Lucas feels, for a brief moment, like a zoo animal. He reminds himself that he’s Lucas Lallemant, and he’s taught hundreds of students. Being peered at is nothing, now.

They clip a lapel mic onto his blazer.

One goes on Claire too, and then—

“Right,” she says. “This is interview #42 of the One Lesson series, #6 of the French edition. Today we’re with Professor Lucas Lallemant. Professor Lallemant, please introduce yourself.”

 _Putain_ , okay. No boot camp, eh? Straight into the trenches.

Lucas faces Claire. He doesn’t know if he should face one camera in particular, but they didn’t tell him anything, so he just picks her, and goes.

“ _Bonjour_. My name is Lucas Lallemant.” God, it’s the first day of _lycée_ all over again. “I’m a professor of biology, at the Université Paris-Descartes. Paris 5, for short. Research-wise, my focus is on neurobiology, but I love teaching, so I still do intro classes. Lucky for everyone, I’ll likely not butcher English too much, thanks to my other alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Quick _merci_ to an old mentor: Professor Waltham, thanks for not giving up on me when I was your student, even though I made English more nasal than it should’ve been.”

Claire smiles at him. It’s slight, but it’s there. Approval, Lucas supposes.

“We’ll go into a bit of detail before the meat of this interview,” she says. “Would you like to talk about your teaching work? You’re severely underselling yourself, Professor. Is it a French thing, this modesty?”

Lucas wants to say, no, it’s not a French thing. He just doesn’t feel like there’s much more to say about himself. Still, he says, “ _Bien, d’accord_. I’m one of the younger professors at Paris 5. It’s where I completed my undergrad. Towards the end, I was offered a chance to study at MIT, and I took it. I completed my master’s, and my PhD there. I was offered a teaching spot after, but I declined. Got homesick, I missed French cheese, who knows? Anyway, yeah. I went back here, was jobless for a bit, but luckily, a place opened up at Paris 5. I applied to teach, and by some miracle, they accepted.”

“Still underselling yourself,” Claire says, but doesn’t push.

He knows what she’s talking about. She probably wants to dig into the awards he received while at MIT, the _summa cum laudes_ for his degrees when he was there. But none of that’s germane to this conversation. Lucas is only himself. That’s all he’s ever been.

Lucas shrugs the _c’est la vie_ shrug. “I’m not a very interesting person, I promise. I teach introductory biology, and then I do my research. In other words, I’m a nerd, and my idea of a good night is sitting down on my couch, eating monstrously overcooked spaghetti. Sometimes I watch National Geographic, like the most clichéd professor ever, but sometimes I watch Oui-Oui, and no, I don’t give a shit.”

The Oui-Oui gets mixed reactions.

Most of the scattered crew looks simply curious, like they don’t know what he just said. But one crew member—and this is how Lucas knows he’s French—breaks out in loud, barking laughter. It’s going to be a mess to edit out, but eh. Lucas isn’t going to deprive anyone of the chance to laugh at him: about the fact that at 27, with a respectable job under his belt, he still watches Oui-Oui when he gets bored.

 _Et alors?_ Oui-Oui was super inspirational when he was young, okay?

Anyone who makes fun of him for it can get the Mika treatment: fuck them.

Eventually, Claire steers the interview back onto plainer ground.

“A science professor that watches National Geographic, and is shameless about liking, ah, _Oui-Oui_?” she says.

“Noddy,” Lucas says. “ _Désolé_. I always forget it’s Noddy in the English-speaking places.”

“Hm. This is going to be quite an interview,” Claire says in the end.

“Let’s hope.”

She makes another discreet signal then. The cameras swivel. One comes nearer, and Lucas is grateful that he took Mika’s fashion advice for today. Gray slacks, white dress shirt, black blazer, good shoes. Jury’s still out on whether he’ll make a fool of himself with the lesson he’s chosen, but at least he’s going to be a well-dressed fool. It’s the French way. If he’s going to fuck up, he’ll do it in style.

Claire says, “To the big things, then. I’ll let you have the floor, Professor.”

“May you not regret it,” Lucas says, trying his best Yoda voice.

Oh, _merde_. Star Wars. _Eliott._

He’s not going to break down 15 minutes in, good god.

Lucas sucks in a big breath, briefly wonders if it will sound horrid because of his lapel, but eh.

He starts.

“Okay. My lesson.” A quick throat-clearing, even though there’s nothing to clear. “I doubt anyone would want me to start spouting off bio facts, so that’s not what you’ll get. _Ne t’inquiète pas_. Instead, I’ve chosen to shame my country, by relentlessly buying into all the French stereotypes: _bonjour, je m'appelle_ Lucas, I’m a Frenchman, and today, I’m going to talk about _l'amour_.”

The air shifts in the café. It’s a palpable change, and makes Lucas’s skin prickle.

Claire responds with nothing but silence, and a forward lean.

Fuck, here it comes.

“When I was 17,” he says, “I fell in love with a boy.”

He knows he has to keep going or he might chicken out. Lucas forces his mouth to form more words.

“Seventeen. That was my second year of _lycée_ , and in order to puncture your hopes that I might be a smooth operator, let me tell you: I did everything wrong.” Lucas gestures with his hands, which is more of a flail than anything. “ _Je suis sérieux_. Everything. I was closeted then, so I told a girl I liked her, but I really didn’t, and then, there was the boy, and he was in a relationship too, and, _alors, ouais_ —a whole mess. Basically, if that whole thing were on TV, the backdrop would be weed, beers, _mes potes_ , paint in places where it shouldn’t be, piano music, and dramatic bus stop moments.”

Claire says nothing for a second or two, and then, “You know, my first instinct is to say that’s not very French. But now that your story’s sunk in, God. It’s _so_ French.”

Lucas smiles, dredges up his personality at 17, and says, “Shit, true.”

That makes Claire laugh. Lucas’s students would be proud. Modernity, yo.

“And the boy’s name?” she says.

For a millisecond, Lucas’s instinct is to answer. _Eliott Demaury_. His tongue practically aches to form the words, to let them out like wishes spoken into the dark, at 3:13 am. He wants to say: _You know him. Famous artist now. What can’t he do, am I right? Filmmaker, photographer, and last I heard, one of his illustrations sold for 219,000 euros. Eliott Demaury: the man, the myth, the legend._

But it’s only for a millisecond.

The greater part of him wants to do what it’s always done. He wants to keep Eliott a private fact, kept under his tender watch like the rose in Beauty and the Beast. He understands the American trend towards self-disclosure, but for all the stereotypes people bandy around about the French, they hold other values. They know what things to tell the world, and what things to nurture in their hearts.

For Lucas, he doesn’t care if he’ll disappoint—he’s going to keep Eliott with him.

Or at least, Eliott’s _name_ , with him. Safe. Cradled by his flesh.

Lucas leans back into his chair. “Rain check on that?”

An eyebrow raise from Claire, but again, no pushing. 

God, she’s light-years away from what Chloe was like at the bus stop.

He says, “It’s not that I don’t want to say his name. Some part of me wants to. But— _putain, je ne sais pas_ . There are just some things too great to set free without care. Pablo Neruda, _tu vois_? Between the shadow and the soul. That’s where his name is lodged, for me. I don’t—ah, _merde_. Who knows? Maybe I’ll change my decision three-fourths of the way through and mutter his name because I can’t help it, or because it seems right, but that’s not this moment.”

Claire says, “ _Pas de problème._ ”

Lucas wishes her every good thing in life, at those words.

“This is your interview,” she adds. “You’re the only one who has the right to tell your story, and you can tell it your way.”

Really, God bless her.

He reaches forward, telegraphing his motion, so that she can say no. Claire doesn’t back away, so he just does it: he reaches to grasp her hand, and gives it a light squeeze.

With his eyes: _merci_.

“ _De rien_ ,” she says, once he’s back in his space.

Lucas scratches at his chin for a moment, trying to regain his train of thought. That’s always been the hard thing about interrupting him. His brain is, at least in Imane’s words, a pinball machine on steroids. He can compose thoughts fine, that’s never been his problem. The problem is maintaining the thoughts once something else has caught his attention.

It was the bane of his existence back when Eliott was around. Lucas would be standing there, intending to say X, and then he’d take one look at Eliott, and bounce from Y to Eliott to Z to R to L, and then back to Eliott, and only after that, home to X.

Finally he settles on, “So, there. 17, and the most unlikely love story ever. I was a confused, closeted S student, he was basically a walking sculpture with no respect for omelet ingredients, and I messed up, and he messed up, and I once punched a wall but only belatedly realized the wall didn’t give a fuck, but despite all that—yeah. I loved him, and he loved me, and it was sixteen million universes being born, every time we kissed. Never mind that I damn near broke my neck each time, because he was a tree, and I was a moderately-sized shrub at best. Sixteen million universes, _je te promets_. Sixteen million, every time.”

The end of his sentence makes Lucas feel vaguely weightless. He doesn’t understand why. It was never some deep dark secret. Practically their whole _lycée_ knew, and even further on, if Claire were to ask around Paris 5, there are still a few who can tell her _stories_ —stories about Lucas, ever so gangly in first year, and oh so achingly in love. Lucas, who was visited near-daily by Eliott. Eliott who only ever seemed to own one jacket, and who gave no shits about still having to commute after full classes from the École des Beaux-Arts, just to see his hedgehog.

God. Just thinking of Eliott now makes Lucas feel like a baseball—thrown backward across the field of time.

He’s not 27, he’s not a professor, he’s not in some café, and he’s not being interviewed.

No, he’s standing under a tree, Eliott looking down at him with liquid eyes, and Eliott’s whispering— _I_ _missed you. Isn’t that stupid? My brain does shut down around you, choupi. But, but! My point: I missed you the moment I couldn’t see you, and that’s with us being Baucis and Philemon already, so very entwined. Over-the-top, isn’t it? I’ll be more sensible tomorrow. Point is, I missed you, hérisson. We owe each other hundreds of minutes, my love, and I missed you for every single one of them._

“Hey, ah, you okay?”

And just like that, he’s a baseball again, pitched back into the present.

“ _Pardonnez-moi_ ,” he tells Claire. “Absent-minded professor, eh?”

“We all have our memories,” is all she says.

He regroups. “Where was I?”

“Sixteen million universes.”

That’s maybe not the best thing for Claire to say, because at her words, Lucas remembers the first time 16 million universes got brought up. 

It’d still been the early days. Lucas in his last year of _lycée_ , and Eliott just starting at university.

_Four. Thirty-one. One hundred and ninety-two. Fifty-six thousand. Seven hundred thousand, two hundred and eighteen. I don’t care. There could be sixteen million universes where we’re alive now, and another sixteen million where it’s still the age of the dinosaurs, but guess what?_

_What, Eliott?_

_In those sixteen million where we exist, you and I are always in love._

_You’re such a fucking—no wonder you were an L student. Jesus Christ._

It plays in HD, in Lucas’s head. Surround sound. Eliott had laughed then, and after—

_Where you are, there I’ll be, choupi. Eliott number 1 loves you, and if asked about his Lucas, Eliott number 16,101,597 would say the same._

This is possibly a bad moment for Lucas to recall his brief Julia Michaels phase, but what a time.

Ending his musings, he looks to the French crew member, who in his head, he’s already tagged as Oui-Oui.

Not exactly the most respectful thing to do, but here they are.

Lucas says, “ _Excuse-moi_. Could I ask you for some water? I kind of, ah, need it, at the moment.”

He glances at Claire to see if this is going to be some unallowable interruption, but she looks content to let him rally. Oui-Oui—Lucas pledges to learn his real name later—walks to a nearby table that looks loaded with supplies. He gets a bottle of water, hands it to Lucas, and then he's back to his perch, with the laptop.

Four gulps later, Lucas returns to his story, the bottle set down beside his left foot.

“I’m being a mess,” he says. “Lucas Lallemant, get it together. Whew, _d’accord_. Sixteen million universes. Sounds like it’s straight out of a rom-com, _oui_? Having just said something like that, I feel this is the point where I have to be a needle again. Catch me here, the curmudgeonly professor, puncturing yet another hope. What’s that line? If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Oui-Oui goes _putain_ at that, and Lucas hears two whispered _shits_ and one _oh, Jesus God_.

He goes on. It’s now or never.

“ _Allez_ ,” he says. Is it for his interviewer, or for himself? He doesn’t know. A deep breath, and then, “It was good, you know? Sublime, even. The heights he and I reached, in the time we were together? Would’ve made a molehill out of Everest. But as you can probably guess, it didn’t work out.”

Claire rests her elbow on the thin arm of the café chair, and her chin in her hand. The American version of Rodin’s _Thinking Man_. She says, “Is this, ah, something you’d be okay with discussing? Or is it a Neruda thing?”

Lucas has to smile at that, because, plus points for attentiveness. While the initial impression was Alexia with her easy charm, and cascade of confidence, now Claire really does remind him of Arthur. Granted, Yann’s always won the best friend award via overall points, but it’s still an established fact: for sheer attentiveness, no one can compete with Arthur Broussard. He’s been champ for so long that the competition’s ceased being a competition. Now it’s more of a formality. Everyone pretends they can maybe beat Arthur, and then Arthur goes _bitch you thought_.

It sends a pleasant warmth through Lucas, thinking of it. He’s got good friends.

He says, “No, this part can stand exposure. My lesson wouldn’t make sense otherwise.”

Claire nods, and gives a small go-on wave. Lucas speaks.

“Okay, so, the boy I loved. He and I were together all the way to the first half of my second year at university. By that time, he was in his final year studying film. And then, oh, I don’t know how to say this: he left. There I was, one day I had him, and the next day, he was calling from Charles de Gaulle already, saying he’d gotten an offer to do an exchange program abroad. And you know, if it was like, one semester, I would’ve dealt, _ouais_? I would’ve forgiven him the sudden departure, and the laceration it caused in my life. Anyone who knows me can tell you—there’s not a lot of things I wouldn’t forgive him for. _Alors, ouais_. At first, I thought it really was only for a semester. And then, once he was in New York, on the phone I asked—so when are you coming back, _mon amour_? And he told me he’d finish his studies _there_. _Et c’était ça_. That was it.”

Claire looks fit to burst at his story, and Lucas raises a hand. He says, “Believe me, I know. You want details, but his story isn’t mine to tell. Perhaps I’ve been wrong to use past tense—I _still_ love him, that boy, and so I still want to protect him how I can. Suffice it to say that he left. He was in a bad place, that time, and he left, and told me that was what he wanted.”

Lucas grabs the water bottle once he finishes his sentence. He drinks, and doesn’t stop until it’s empty.

He sets the bottle by his feet again.

Facing Claire head-on, he says, “This is the part where I tell you I have no dignity in love. Because that boy? He went to New York, and did I try to get him back, even after he said he’d stay there? Sure. I Skyped him, I racked up quite a bill calling when he wasn’t online, and it’s only by the grace of a friend of mine that I still gave a shit about school, given the hell I was going through. She visited my flat every day, woke up earlier than she would’ve otherwise, just so she could whack me awake every morning with a pillow to the face. That tough love saved me. But while it was going good on that front, romantically speaking I was a daffodil in gale-force winds. Fucking disintegration.”

Lucas huffs out a breath, then. Wrings his hands together, grips the arms of the café chair, wrings his hands again.

It’s a long while before he can go on, but manage it he does.

“I’ll never be able to describe, in full, what that was like. I begged him to come back, he told me New York was where his dreams were, I don’t know—that’s what he said. And you know, if he’d told me, even once, that he wanted me to hop on a flight? I would’ve been off in a heartbeat. But he kept telling me that New York was _it_ , and I should just stay in Paris, and so I did.” And here, Lucas pauses, feeling his eyes start to sting. “I stayed, because I promised him in the beginning, that I’d never try to control him. Never try to force him into something he didn’t want. It was kissing live coals open-mouthed, but I kept my promise. I’m proud of that, at least. I kept my promise.”

And oh, oh, fuck. Yep, Lucas knows what these things are, now running down his cheeks.

Tears.

He doesn’t know if his Wise Self always knew this would happen, but he’s thankful said self is around, because Wise Self made Dumb Self pack a handkerchief.

Lucas grabs it from the pocket of his slacks, and dabs at his eyes.

When his vision clears, a quick sweep reveals the state of things.

Oui-Oui is now full-on rubbing at his eyes with one hand, while his other frantically types things—probably without much success—on the laptop in front of him. The three crew members behind the cameras don’t look any better. One’s shuffling weirdly from side to side. Another is taking deep breaths like he’s some mom in a class, being taught breathing exercises for labor. The last one’s eyes look suspiciously red, even as she gives Lucas a death glare.

And his interviewer?

She’s gripping the arms of her chair like she’s being electrocuted, and is doing her damnedest not to scream about it.

Yep, Lucas has been very sinful today.

He’s still sniffling a bit, but he decides to get the rest out, because, when else?

If he backs out now, he doubts he’ll ever summon up the courage to give this a take two.

Resting his hands on his lap, a hand on each thigh like a kid in class, he says, “Everything I’ve said means that now, I can pass on my lesson. It’s taken us a lifetime and a half to get here, but my lesson is, _regret nothing_.”

The café descends into silence again. Disappointed silence? Relieved silence? No idea.

Lucas continues.

“Did it work out? No. Did I get hurt? Massively. You can’t know how much I loved that boy, and love him still. It’s nearly a decade on, and yet, here I still am. I’d be justified, really, if after losing him I decided, fuck love, _tu sais_? _L’amour? Bah, ouais, c’est pour les enfants._ For children who don’t know better. I don’t feel anyone would blame me if I chose to put up walls. I don’t feel I’d be blamed either, if I said that I regret ever meeting him.” Lucas pauses. The pause is needed. He wants to drive this _home_ —“But the thing is, I _don’t_. I don’t regret meeting him. I don’t regret loving him, or being loved by him. When he left, it was _le vide_. A darkness so black it would’ve made black holes look like fireworks.”

And here Lucas looks straight at Claire, and hopes some camera is trained enough on him to capture the moment, because this is the fulcrum of everything—“But while there was darkness, it wasn’t always night. I lost him, sure. But the good moments? There were enough for me to feel like I was loved for two lifetimes. Other people would’ve chosen to focus on the loss, and who am I to judge them? _Mais pour moi_ , what matters is that in a world of billions, my path met his, even if only for a little while.”

At that, Oui-Oui lets out a crisp _putain_ , and Lucas laughs a watery laugh.

He’s dabbing at his eyes again now, but he has to finish this, so Lucas says, “ _Alors_ , that’s my lesson. If you’re ever lucky enough to find someone you love, regret nothing, no matter how it ends. Maybe you’ll win it all. Stay together until your heads are gray, until your hands can no longer grip like they used to. Or maybe you’ll have it for a little while. You’ll part ways, but stay friends. Or maybe your story will be like mine, and you’ll lose them, despite holding on hard enough to draw blood. I say, none of that matters. When you love someone, no matter what happens, tell yourself— _je ne regrette rien_. Because love will always change you, and if you treat it right, it'll always change you for the better. I am who I am today, partly because of that boy. I loved him, I lost him, I love him still. _Et tu sais quoi? Je ne regrette rien._ ”

It’s at that point that Claire begins sobbing, and while he’s sad to have messed up her very professional look, some part of him is happy. He’s passed on what he wanted to pass on. _Love_. If he’s learned anything from what he had with Eliott, it’s that—that love is the point, the answer, the cause, the _everything_. 

Really, he didn’t give a shit about literature before his _raton laveur_ , but right now, with his interviewer sobbing and all the rest of them no better off, Lucas finds himself thinking of Victor Hugo.

His mind winds back, to a once-upon-a-time night at his flat. His head had been on Eliott's chest, the two of them in bed, his _mec_ softly reading to him.

_If no one loved, the sun would go out._

Lucas thinks, even after everything, that it’s true.

* * *

The interview hits the web a week and a half later.

At first, the views come in trickles.

Then, critical mass, when Lucas’s students catch wind of it, and spread it on campus.

Within a week of being posted, the video crosses the 50K mark. Four and a half weeks after that, it crosses half a million, with no signs of slowing. People pour in, sharing their own stories in the comments: loves that worked out, didn’t work out, and worked out for a bit, but then fizzled. Loves too, that might’ve been born in another universe, but not in this one.

And sure, Lucas’s friends see his interview, and congratulate him on it. But in that good way of theirs, they don’t rib him. They say nothing, even if they know precisely who _the boy_ is. They just hug Lucas, and forbid themselves from public comment, because really, is it their place? Lucas himself had said rain check on Eliott’s name.

They’re not bastards enough to spit on that by commenting: _Oh, the boy? That’s Eliott Demaury. Yeah, of course we have his number. That story? We lived through that shit._

So, yes. Nothing ever reaches the public of Le Gang’s, or Le Crew’s reaction.

In private, though?

Arthur messages Imane two days after the interview goes live: _Putain, have you seen this?_

She replies back: _Of course_.

But because Arthur is Arthur and Imane is Imane, and they’re not shitty people, they do nothing.

(Or, well, nearly nothing. Arthur does bring a pizza to Lucas’s flat, and Imane, three days later, drops by Lucas’s office with coffee.)

And if _doing nothing_ turns into _we have to fucking do something_ because of a certain other interview posted three months later, well—Arthur has never claimed to be some indifferent Zen monk. And Imane? She can’t stand situations where there are solutions, but the situations keep being shitty just because no one’s seeing said solutions. Besides, all they want is for their friend to truly, truly, truly, smile again.

(They’ve missed it, you see. That smile. Just as someone else, three months later in _his_ interview, admits he’s missed it too. _Terribly_ , in fact.)

But for such things, there’s a time, and a place.

Until that time, and until that place?

_Il faut attendre._

One has to wait.


	2. Not Afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight trigger warning, for Eliott talking about a suicide attempt. But it’s nothing graphic.

**Chapter Two**

As Eliott approaches the café, there’s one thing he knows. He’s breaking the rules here.

When he’d received the interview request from Claire, her terms were clear. One interview, to be posted online, with a simple theme: what was the one thing he wanted everyone to know? No part of that request had said anything about tag-alongs.

And yet here Eliott is, with precisely that. He’s nearing a Paris café he knows too, _too_ well, and strapped on for the ride are his two Norwegians.

They’re even the ones walking in front of him, like _they’re_ the Parisians, and he’s, you know, a pleb. (Or worse. A _tourist_.)

In a way, that isn’t far from the truth. He might as well be a tourist in this city. It’s been so long since he was last in Paris, that it feels like the city’s trying to get to know him again.

The cool air is kissing his skin and asking, _who are you?_ The pavement is tasting his footsteps, and asking, _why have you come?_

And he wants to pretend he doesn’t know. Pretend he’s not really sure why he’s said yes. But that’s the young part of him talking. The part that still doesn’t grasp everything about life, the part that after 29 birthdays is still a child. You see, there’s another part of him that whispers—an older part, as primeval as the ocean— _of course you know._

_You know why you’re here. Don’t lie._

_You’re here because this is Paris, and Paris is where hope lives._

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? About hope. Consider Tantalus: he knows he’ll never reach the fruit. Never reach the water. The gods don’t take back judgments. And yet he still stretches out his hands. _That’s_ the punishment, Eliott realizes—the reaching, not the deprivation. Eternal hunger, and eternal thirst? They’re easy friends, just give them time. But the nearness of relief? It never dulls, and that’s what kills.

The thing that keeps you going is also the knife in your heart: teasing, excruciating, _infinite_ hope.

Soon enough though, there’s no more time for things like Tantalus. Because one moment, Eliott’s musing, and the next, Even and Isak have gone into the café, Even pushing open the doors, and Isak entering like a young, bored god. 

In the tide of such confidence, what can Eliott do except follow?

They’re barely through, before a woman comes up to them. She looks to be around their age.

Eliott quickly tags her as Claire. Not because he’s psychic, but because she holds herself differently. There’s the straightness one always sees in those who lead. Clearly Even has made the same assumption, because before Eliott can do so, Even’s already introducing himself.

“You must be Claire,” he says, in nigh-on accentless English.

“And you’re definitely not Eliott Demaury,” is her reply, as they shake hands.

“He wishes he was me,” Even says, grinning. Eliott spots the swat Isak gives him.

Eventually, after Claire’s intro-ed to Isak too, courtesy of Even— _and this lovely man is Isak, isn’t he beautiful?—_ she finally extends her hand to Eliott himself.

“ _Enchantée_ , _Monsieur_ Demaury.”

He shakes her hand, quick and firm. “Pleased to meet you as well.”

There’s a little smile on her face, but she’s 95% business from then on. Eliott can appreciate that. There’s something to be said about efficiency, even if it isn’t one of his own virtues. He’s met directors like that, those who know just what they want, and when they want it. Eliott can’t claim the same style, but hey. _Laissez-faire_. 

Claire leads him to the center of the café, where two chairs have been set up, facing each other. After telling Isak and Even to get comfy in one of the loveseats to the side, she motions for Eliott sit down. Claire herself goes off to a corner, to talk to a man with a laptop. Crew, most likely.

Alone in his chair, Eliott is hit with the memories.

His _hérisson_ did so love this café, close as it was to Paris 5. 

Eliott’s mind plays a highlight reel—that one week where they both bought a different drink each time, solely for the pleasure of new tastes on each other’s lips. Their hushed conversations: him whispering into Lucas’s ear, while his _mec_ self-recited the history of life. And Lucas, always thanking Eliott, for being the one to go to the counter: his soft _merci, chéri, you’re so good to me_. Eliott remembers his most common response, near-instinctual by then— _anything for you, sweetheart_.

His breath hitches at the recollection.

Suddenly, a voice. “Everything okay, Mr. Demaury?”

He smiles at Claire. Brings himself back to where he is. “ _Pardon_. Just remembering.”

“Oh?” she says, as she finally sits across from him. “Good memories, I hope?”

Eliott nods. “ _Beautiful_.”

And it’s true. All his memories of Lucas are resplendent, never mind their tinge of pain. What’s a little flurry in a snow globe? Once everything settles, the beauty of what’s inside is no less than before.

“That’s good to hear,” Claire says, and then she makes a gesture. Some quick twirly thing with her hands.

Apparently, that’s everyone’s cue to swarm him.

Eliott almost dissociates, as he’s prepped. As they pin a mic to the lapel of his peacoat, and as the crew members position the cameras. He’s been in too many shoots to still be afraid, but it’s not the cameras that bother him, anyway. You never fear the things you know. It’s the things you _don’t_ know that fuck you up. And right now, the don’t-knows have the majority.

See, despite his reputation—sex god filmmaker, and _artiste extraordinaire_ —there are still a lot of things unknown to him. Sure, he knows how to lead a film shoot. He knows how to finish a painting. He knows how to ham it up at award shows. But this? Today? It’s like nothing else that has ever happened. Because the story that will unspool from him, in a little while?

It’s been buried deep all this time—a lockbox in the soil of his heart.

And Eliott wants to do it justice, is the thing. Doesn’t want to fuck it up. He’s got how many films now? How many exhibitions? Fuck those.

They don’t matter, not in the face of _this_ narrative. 

It reminds him of lines from a Pinter play: _This is the only thing that has ever happened. Nothing has ever happened._

And it’s not even just the narrative itself. It’s Even and Isak, too. There’s a reason he brought them. Granted, they don’t know the full reason yet, but they will. Eliott also wants to do _them_ justice. To honor one of the most transcendent love stories he’s ever known, one so grand that it’s the only thing that can even _approach_ what he had with Lucas.

He’ll get it right, that’s his vow.

Get it right for himself, for Lucas, for Isak and Even, and for everyone who’s still out there on cliff edges of their own. Eliott doesn’t want them to make his mistake.

He knows prep is over when the place stills. This always happens on shoots. It’s the first few moments before everything starts, when all is poised, and the air smells of the inevitable: a boulder about to roll down a hill.

“Ready, Mr. Demaury?”

“Any chance you could call me Eliott?” he says.

“That seems to be a theme with you French. One of our past interviewees, practically the first thing he asked was, please don’t call me _professeur_.”

Eliott laughs. “ _Vraiment?_ Well, maybe we’re modernizing. There might be hope for us yet.”

Claire shrugs. “On my end, I’ll stick to the courtesies for now. Call you Eliott when it feels right. I’m too much a fan to take liberties.”

“Usually it would be the other way around,” Eliott says. “But that’s fair.”

Claire just repeats her words. “Ready?”

Eliott rakes through his mop of hair. Huffs. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

She says, “Well, just don’t mind the cameras, and we’ll be off. For documentation, this is Interview #59 of the One Lesson series, and the 17th, of the French edition. _Monsieur_ Demaury, if you’d please introduce yourself.”

“We believe in you, Eliott!” Isak says, unexpectedly.

Eliott’s smile widens, and he gives Isak a quick glance. It’s impossible, really, not to treasure the shit Isak does. It’s achingly familiar, in a way Eliott holds on to these days. Isak is like a shirt he’s known forever, but which he gave to his mom to wash. Now the shirt is shrunken, and doesn’t fit quite right, but he loves it still.

They’re wasting daylight, though, so Eliott follows Claire’s request.

“ _Bon. Je m’appelle_ Eliott Demaury. I’m a filmmaker, mostly, but I also do photography, and at times, I paint and draw. I’ve been based in New York the last couple years, but I work globally, in practice.”

Claire seems satisfied with that, as she says, “And what can we expect today? Any hints as to your lesson?”

Eliott leans back in his chair, and stretches his legs. He crosses them at the ankles. For good measure, he crosses his arms, too.

“I agonized for weeks, actually. A lot of people have been asking me to give lessons about my art. But as vital as art is to me, it’s not the one thing I’d like _everyone_ to know. While delightful in its ability to bridge barriers, art isn’t as universal as other things. And it’s to these other things that I’d like to turn. Chiefly, I’m just going to tell a story. It’s about New York, about Norwegians, and about what it feels like, to be far from home.”

He glances at Isak and Even, then. They’ve clearly gone from semi-alert, to something like hunting mode. Even, in all his long-limbed glory, has leaned forward: body bent, elbows resting on his knees, his hands steepled. Isak’s attention isn’t quite so sharp, but Eliott doesn’t miss the new light in his eyes.

Eliott returns his focus to Claire. “My lesson is embedded in the story itself. It will come up in the telling.”

“Okay,” is all she says. Another signal to the cameras. Movement around the café. “You have the floor, then.”

Eliott takes a deep breath. Reminds himself of his watchwords. _Pas peur. Pas peur. Pas peur._

He starts.

“Most people have a narrative in their heads, about my life. Most of the public knows my story. I haven’t exactly been reticent, nor reclusive. I’ve discussed New York, my studies, and even my struggles with mental illness. But this is the first time I’m going to talk about New York in-depth. You’re aware that for most of my degree, I was in Paris?”

Claire nods. “You transferred to New York to finish.”

Eliott says, “ _Oui, c’est vrai._ I was nearly done with my studies, by the time of that pond crossing. But what no one knows about that move, is what I left behind.” He rubs at his suddenly-aching chest. “Or, more precisely, _who_.”

Claire shuffles in her chair so she can listen better.

Eliott, gritting teeth, wills himself into composure. “My transfer to New York seems rosy to most outsiders. You want to be a filmmaker, you try to go to that city. It’s kind of like how writers all want to go to Paris. But things were never so simple. Yes, I did get a transfer offer, since a US professor had seen some of my online work. But what no one knows is, when that offer came, I was just getting into a manic episode. As you can imagine, the beginnings of mania aren’t a good breeding ground for wisdom. Within days, I’d decided to say yes, never mind how much of a life I had here. And once the decision was made, my brain kept telling me it was right, so I pursued it, full-throttle.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Eliott hears Even say. A quick look shows Even now pressing close to Isak, gripping the latter’s knee. It’s hitting close to home, most likely.

There’s still an interview to be had though, so Eliott continues. 

“When I say full-throttle, I mean full-throttle. Once I’d decided, I told the professor I’d book a flight, and the soonest available one, no less. Can you see how stupid that was? I didn’t even make arrangements for housing, nothing. No thought to the cost of the flight, either. Basically, I decided, and then I was off. Nothing in between.”

Eliott keeps at it. He knows he’s not letting Claire speak, but some part of him feels, well, manic. Almost like there’s an itch in his throat. Like some creature’s gotten lodged there, and now he’s desperate to spit it out. This must be what terminal patients feel like, faced with the sudden need to say goodbye.

“What most might not know about mania,” he says, “is that you can never predict how long it’ll last. Some episodes of mine have lasted days, and some, weeks. Those were the usual ones. This particular New York episode? _Months_.”

He sees it, the way Claire is processing his words. Gratitude bubbles up in him, because her eyes aren’t changing. Eliott’s not seeing what he calls _the shift_ —the shift where a person truly decides, _oh no, this person is fucked up_. No, her eyes are just neutral. They might as well be discussing ice cream flavors. (Mint chocolate wins, of course.) And yes, it’s nothing compared to the way Lucas took it—doesn’t even come close to _minute par minute_ —but her reaction is still good. Their broken world needs more people like her.

“Months,” Eliott says again. “And in those months, while I was in New York, there was a boy in Paris—a sea-eyed, messy-haired moon, trying to call my tides home.”

He’s not even half into the story. But that last sentence drains him, makes him feel like a husk. Very well. Let him be bled dry now, bled anew. Sharing this story is carving him open, but what’s new about that? He’s been flayed to the marrow, for most of the last ten years.

“There are no words enough,” Eliott says, “for that boy. I know what I lost, when I lost him. He kept calling, do you know? But there I was, in New York, my mania speaking for me. I kept telling him my place was in America. Kept telling him my dreams were in a new city, and fuck staid Paris with its cheeses, and its rail strikes. And you know what? Throughout all of that, he was so gentle, still. _Come home, mon amour, and we can talk about this. I’m not angry. We’ll be okay. S’il te plaît, chéri. Come home to me._ He was always, _always_ so good. And I kept telling him no.”

Eliott hears a faint _faen_. Whether it was Isak, or Even, he doesn’t know. A beat after that, okay— _that’s_ unmistakably Even, going, _Isak, jeg elsker deg, you know that, don’t you, love?_

It’s understandable, Even’s sudden need to reassure. It settles like tar in Eliott’s own blood, though. Because the way Even is reassuring Isak feels like a judgment upon Eliott. It’s like Even is saying, of course not, Isak, _I’d_ never do that to you. And Eliott knows it’s wrong to be thinking this way. For one, him and Even know each other too well. But the more fundamental truth? Even Bech Næsheim would never do something so _crass_ as judge him.

Eliott soldiers on with the interview.

“I kept telling him no. And eventually, I guess he caved into that, because the calls stopped. _Je ne sais pas_. I’m not particularly a man of faith. But maybe it was God punishing me, because when the calls stopped, the mania stopped soon after. And once it ended? A free-fall to rival Satan’s, straight into the ninth circle of hell. Once the depression hit, only then did it really sink in what I’d done. And by then, what was there to do? I’d hurt the man who loved me, pushed him away, and in the claws of my depression, I felt like—what right did I have to come crawling back? Never mind that it was all I wanted to do. I felt I didn’t deserve to.”

At that point, Eliott stops. He smooths down his peacoat, rubs his palm over his legs. The pause lets him collect himself, but it also lets him point at Even and Isak.

“This is where the Norwegians come in,” he says.

The cameras swivel. Not all of them, but one out of the three that’ve been set up. Said camera is moved close to the pair on the loveseat. Eliott looks at his friends, waiting for their reaction. God. He’s going to owe them so much.

He mouths a _sorry_ , and a _trust me,_ at Even in particular. He thanks whatever gods exist that Even _does_ trust him, and that Isak trusts Even. All Eliott sees is that they grip each other’s hands tighter, and Isak leans in close, Even banding an arm around him.

“You can imagine the sorry state I was in,” Eliott says, eventually. “Depressed, alone in a new city, _regretful_. One day, it all got to be too much. I climbed up to a roof deck, one that was quite near the Media Studies building of my school. I really was about to go, you know? But then, as I’m on that roof, I hear footsteps. I turn, and Even’s behind me, his hair mocking gravity, and his hands in his pockets. I didn’t know it at that time, but apparently, it was ‘his’ roof deck. And he smiled at me, all careful, and said, ‘Hey, man. Not my roof deck. You’ll ruin the vibe.’ And that could’ve gone so wrong. I could’ve not given a shit. Could’ve jumped anyway. But I think I know what stopped me. It was his eyes.”

Even pipes in with a joke at that point. “Good god, Eliott. How long have you been crushing on me, then? Don’t worry. As soon as three-way marriages are legal, your ass is ours. Isn’t that right, Isak?”

“Hundred percent,” Isak says, like he’s been completing Even’s humor for centuries.

Eliott smiles, his heart growing warm and achy. He adores these two.

“He just looked at me, really,” Eliott says, back in interview mode. “After that vibe comment, he didn’t say anything else. But his _eyes_. Eyes that told me I was still worthy. Eyes that told me, maybe this minute is absolute shit, but the next minute could be better, eh? And then—” here Eliott gulps in a breath, “—then he opened his arms. Do you understand? I was a _stranger_ , but he _still_ opened his arms. Inched closer and closer, and the look in his eyes never changed. Before I could really process what was happening, there I was. A fucking Frenchman, talked off a literal ledge, getting snot all over a Norwegian who didn’t even know me.”

“You fucking fucker,” Even says, from his and Isak’s corner. “If you’d jumped, I would’ve lost out on a best friend. And then who’d be my snobby French buddy? Let’s not forget, you made Isak see the light about Baz Luhrmann. Losing you would’ve been a tragedy.”

Against all odds, despite the weight of what he’s just shared, Eliott laughs.

“ _Je t’aime aussi, mon chéri_ ,” he says to Even.

Isak immediately quips, “Fuck you both. If we’re gonna have a threesome, there needs to be a discussion first.”

And now everyone breaks into laughter. (Someone, in a very French way, says, _we need to interview these Norwegians next_. Eliott checks to see who spoke—oh, Laptop Guy.)

Eliott lets it all be. They probably all need it. A brief respite. A tiny, temporary haven, against what’s coming.

He waits until the laughter dies down into chuckles, and then the chuckles, into stillness.

For effect, Eliott leans forward a bit more, so that the cameras trained on him can catch his expression. The world ought to know what his two Norwegians are like. Let all living see his adoration.

“And that was the third moment,” Eliott says, “the third _true_ moment, that I learned—it really is by the grace of love that we survive. The first real moment I learned that? It was with a boy, crouched down in front of me, saying, _t’es plus tout seul_. The second moment was with that same boy, cradling my face, saying, _minute par minute_. And the third moment was Even on that roof, telling me it was okay to break down. That I could be in hell, and he wouldn’t stop me, but I also couldn’t stop him from being there with me through it.”

Eliott catches his breath. Prays that wonderment is painted all over his face. Even and Isak deserve it. “And Even brought me home, after that. And I met Isak. You remember, earlier, when Even introduced him? _Isn’t this man beautiful?_ I can attest to that. The soul on Isak Valtersen? You can’t imagine. Because what was I, back then? A nobody. Just some crying stray Even had dragged into their apartment with him. Isak had every right to turn me away. But the first thing he did was to hug me as well, and he helped Even sit me down on their couch, and while Even got me water, Isak soothed me. Used his own shirt to wipe away some of my tears. What people _do_ that, these days? He didn’t even ask my name.”

It’s then that Eliott reaches into the pocket of his jeans, drawing out his handkerchief. He wipes at his eyes, which have seen fit to begin their waterworks. But then, who wouldn’t cry over the sheer miracle of what Even and Isak did? People are stupid. They’re stupid to think that Scandinavians are as cold as their climate. Because Isak? Even? They’re hearth-fires, no ice in sight.

His eyes semi-dried, Eliott puts his handkerchief on his lap, primly folded. He marches on with his story.

“I say again: it’s by the grace of love that we survive. They were strangers, but they loved me. We live _because_ of love, and the fact that I’m here today, giving this interview at all, is proof.”

The tears return then, never having really left, and this time, they give no quarter. Eliott doesn’t even try to halt their progress, down his cheeks. He doesn’t know if the others take his own tears as permission, but soon enough, there are sniffles, and then he can hear people rubbing at their eyes, and blowing their noses on gods know what.

Isak and Even look particularly wrung-out—Isak has his eyes squeezed shut, his index and thumb pinching at the bridge of his nose. And Even? Even looks torn between staying with Isak, and engulfing Eliott in a hug. Eliott, with his eyes, tells him to stay. Isak needs him: when you’re storm-lost, your salvation is the embrace of the one you call home.

For Isak, home is Even, and that’s as plain a fact as the hours in a day.

And the thought of that—the thought of Isak and Even and _home_ —shocks Eliott back into focus.

He sniffles, loud, wipes at his face again. He takes four breaths, and then, back to his tale.

Eliott says, “Apart from the fact that I wouldn’t be here without them, they’re also nice lead-ins, to the lesson I want everyone to learn. The lesson is this: _pas peur_.”

“Oh, _putain_ , not afraid!” someone says. From the voice, and from the way his tongue had wrapped around _putain_ , Eliott immediately knows it's Laptop Guy.

Poor _mec_ still looks a bit teary, but hey, aren’t they all? 

Eliott nods quick at the guy, and then tells Claire, “He’s right. In French, that means _not afraid_. Why is that my lesson? Well, it’s because I know what got away from me, because of fear. In the months after my manic episode, my mind kept singing the same thoughts. _You left him behind. You deserve to suffer. What right do you have to barge into his life again? You want to ruin him a second time?_ Note the common theme: fear. It told me I didn’t deserve love anymore, and I listened. So even if all I wanted was to go back to Paris, to kiss the feet of the boy I loved, I didn’t. Fear told me I didn’t deserve to do that. Fear told me that even if I did, why on fucking Earth would he take me back? So I stayed in New York. I got my degree, Even and Isak got me back on my feet, and I built a life for myself. But you can’t know the price I paid. The boy I loved? I told you—I know what I lost when I lost him. I lost my sweetheart. I lost my love.”

Eliott raises his left hand then. Shows it to all and sundry.

“You see? I don’t have a ring now, because all those years ago, I lost the only one I ever wanted to spend my life with. And all because I was afraid. So I’m here to tell you, don’t make the mistake I made. Whether you’re in love, and you haven’t told the other person yet, or you’ve fucked up and now you’re afraid of saying sorry, or you’ve lost them and are now terrified of trying to get them back? I’m telling you—the fear is nothing. It’s nothing compared to the poison that will lace your blood in its place. You know what that poison is? _Regret_.”

And Eliott feels like a trench soldier, right about now. It’s 1918, and he’s riddled with holes, from having crossed a ruthless battlefield. His blood is nothing but fumes: the last dregs of life that always seem to animate the ones ready to die. Does he still have enough to continue? He’s not sure, but he has to. He _has_ to. He owes it to everyone that’s still got a shot. His shot? He fucked it up so badly there aren’t even words. But others still have their chances.

He’s doing this for them.

With a heaving, torn-out breath, Eliott speaks.

“The regret will eat you alive,” he says. “It’s been almost a decade since I lost my love, and look at me. For shame and regret, I stayed away from this city, because every street, every lamppost, every fucking _cobblestone_ screams, _you’re without love, and it’s your own fault_. I look at Isak and Even, and cry at times, because they got it right, and I didn’t. And you know the _only_ thing that separates me and them? They’ve been braver than I’ve been.”

Isak says, “Eliott, that’s not—”

Eliott holds a hand up, to avert further interruption.

He says, “Even? He once stood under Isak’s window, singing in Norwegian, all to convince Isak to forgive him. It was some fucking dance monstrosity. I know this because I was living with them by then. You never forget being woken by a Gabrielle song, at 2:18 AM. You don’t do that shit in New York. People laugh at you if you do. But Even still sang, and at the end, he damn near ruptured his lungs, yelling, _Isak, you're still the man of my dreams_. And Isak? He once wrote 366 sticky notes, telling Even how thankful he was for another year together. Made sure it was 366 because it was a leap year. I bought so many Post-Its in the name of that act, and I hand-drew doodles on each one, at his request. Isak made me all the coffee I asked for, in exchange. And he _hates_ making coffee. You see what I mean? They’re both unafraid. They’ll do anything not to lose their love, and now look at them. They’re here in Paris, and they burn brighter than the lights of the Eiffel. _Courage_ , you understand? They’ve always shown it. Me? I wasn’t brave when I most needed to be. Look at the result. I’ve been to the best cities in the world. New York. Tokyo. Melbourne. Florence. Shanghai. London. I’ve felt like an exile in all of them.”

It’s only then, after such a long and controlled silence, that Claire says, “You’d really term it exile?”

Eliott responds very plainly: “What did I say when I introduced myself? I’m _based_ in New York. I never said it was home. You know where home is? Home is climbing Montmartre, my arms linked with those of a pocket-sized boy. Home is a _coloc_ where he’s spitting into the sink because I know fuck all about cooking. Home is him telling me he stands by the door at night, because he likes waiting to hear my footsteps.”

Laptop Guy practically howls, “ _Putain, c’est ça!_ This shit makes me so proud to be French.”

Eliott favors him with a brief smile, but otherwise keeps on.

“They say it’s clichéd, but fuck all that, because if someone told me I could trade everything? The accolades, the fans, the money, even the art I’ve made? I’d trade it all. _All of it_ , in exchange for one more moment with that boy, telling me— _I love you so much. Don’t you think we’re so lucky? Your dubstep could’ve ended it all, but the universe still kept us together. Je t’aime, Eliott. Mon cœur? C’est toi—hier, aujourd’hui, toujours._ I’d trade everything for that.”

The loss in his blood sends Eliott into another crying jag. _Merde_ , he’s going to deliver the end of his story while ugly sobbing, but eh, can’t be helped. He’s quite resigned, actually. If he’s going to cry a whole damn lake today, what cause could be worthier than Lucas?

“So my lesson?” he says, voice cracking. “ _Pas peur_. If you’re ever graced with the kind of love I was graced with, fight for it. Fuck if it makes you look stupid. Fuck if you have to beg a bit. Fuck if you’ve got to wade through thorns. Because I’m telling you. Nothing will ever be worse than regret. Love is the most difficult, frustrating, agonizing, delightful, redeeming, _life-saving_ thing in the world. When it’s in your hands, there’s no room for cowardice. My sweetheart? He told me _pas peur_ , in pitch darkness at _La Petite Ceinture_. He told me _pas peur_ , and I forgot that, precisely when he deserved for me to recall it most. Don’t do what I did. Don’t be afraid. If I were braver, I’d have him now. If I were braver, I’d have a ring on my finger, with his name etched on it. If I were braver, I’d be home. Look at me. I’ve been walking for so long. All I want is to come home, and I _can’t_. It rends my heart in half, every day. I miss him. _Terribly_. Upon no one do I wish my fate.”

And Eliott, through his tears and rasping breaths, forces himself to face the most logical camera.

“ _Pas peur_ ,” he says, a final statement. “Never forget that. In love, tell yourself— _pas peur_.”

After those two words, he’s deluged in human warmth. The crew members all walk over, wet eyes and blubbering voices, to thank him, to shake his hand, to hug him. After that, Even and Isak come, both pulling him into an embrace.

Even says _we’re here_ , and Isak says _you’re not alone_.

And it should comfort him, their words.

But while they kind of do, the words are ultimately lacking.

Eliott knows it’s neither Even’s, nor Isak’s fault.

They’re just themselves, and they’re good as they are.

But sure as the world turns, they aren’t Lucas.

* * *

The interview is a match being dropped into a gasoline tanker.

It’s a perfect Venn diagram, audience-wise. The Parisians are proud to support their own, Eliott’s fans are in fits about everything, and Even’s own pitch in as well. Beyond those three segments, strangers carry the tide: endless, endless, endless.

There are those who watch the interview, however, who are not strangers.

Two in particular matter.

One Arthur Broussard, and one Imane Bakhellal.

Eliott doesn’t know, but their reaction to his interview isn’t new. They reacted similarly to one interview before his. But his is the tipping point, the one that flings both over the edge. So when he’s back in New York with his two Norwegians, he has no idea. No idea that in a nondescript Paris office, a lawyer is writing:

_Ms. Claire Sidney:_

_My name is Arthur Broussard, and I’m a partner at Broussard and Villiers._

_I’m writing to bring your attention to two of your interviewees—Mr. Lucas Lallemant, professor of biology, and Mr. Eliott Demaury, filmmaker. I understand you may be hesitant, to involve yourself in the private lives of those you’ve interviewed. But, I believe there’s presently good reason for you to do so._

_Please allow the rest of this letter to explain—_

The letter goes on for some pages. And because Arthur leaves no jobs half-done, he sends it both via email, and via his company letterhead. People always pay attention to letters from law offices. And yes, it’s a massive risk. Lucas could hate him for it, especially. His prickly friend has never liked interference. But this is one of those moments where Arthur feels he’s doing the right thing.

(And also, Imane said _do it_ , so there’s that.)

With the letter out the door, there’s nothing to do but wait.

Arthur is normally a patient man—no person who finishes a law degree can quite be called lacking, in that department—nevertheless, this is the first time he wants to be more than mortal. He wants to be one of the Fates: Clotho, in particular. He wants to weave, and weave, and weave. To keep at the threads until they get to the point where Eliott and Lucas are finally happy.

Because who are they kidding?

The only thing stopping them both is that they don’t know. They don’t know that even after all these years, nothing’s changed.

Not where it matters.

So Arthur, while he recognizes the risk, is pulling an Eliott.

What had Eliott said?

_Pas peur._

_Allez._

_Pas peur_ , then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reply to every comment, long or short, so take Eliott’s lesson to heart, mecs. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts!

**Author's Note:**

> I reply to every comment, so please feel free to drop your thoughts. No pressure, too. You can talk about anything. Which lines hit you, and which ones left you cold? Which parts left you with questions, and what questions are those? Which parts did you like best, or least? And if you're not in the mood for detail, then mecs, I speak fluent emoji. Let's chat!


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